UPPER DARBY TOWNSHIP (PA)
Delco Tiimes
October 17, 2018
By Phil Heron
It appears the Pennsylvania Senate is poised to do what it does best.
Not much.
The Senate has one day – today – left to take up a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations to bring criminal charges in cases of child sexual abuse, as well as expanding the window for victims to bring civil actions.
Actually, it appears as if those measures could pass, just as they did in the House.
That’s not the problem. The issue that has tied up the bill in the Senate is an amendment added that would open a two-year window for past victims in abuse cases – sometimes from decades ago – to bring actions against their abusers, including the Catholic church.
The amendment was added to the legislation by Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, himself a victims of abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest years ago.
The two-year window was one of the recommendations of the grand jury that laid out- in vivid, horrific detail – the sexual abuse of more than 1,000 children by at least 300 predator priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses.
The Senate continues to debate the issue, but no vote has been taken.
I’m not surprised.
The two-year window is bitterly opposed by the Catholic church, as well as the insurance industry.
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